In general, ink jet printing machines or printers include at least one printhead that ejects drops or jets of liquid ink onto a recording or image forming media. A phase change ink jet printer employs phase change inks that are in the solid phase at ambient temperature, but transition to a liquid phase at an elevated temperature. The molten ink can then be ejected onto a printing media by a printhead directly onto an image receiving substrate, or indirectly onto an intermediate imaging member before the image is transferred to an image receiving substrate. Once the ejected ink is on the image receiving substrate, the ink droplets quickly solidify to form an image.
In both the direct and offset printing architecture, images may be formed on a continuous media web. In a web printer, a continuous supply of media, typically provided in a media roll, is conveyed by a plurality of rollers that are arranged to guide the media web through a print zone where a plurality of printheads are positioned to deposit ink onto the web to form images. Beyond the print zone, the media web is gripped and pulled by mechanical structures so a portion of the media web continuously moves through the print zone. Tension bars or rollers may be placed in the feed path of the moving web to remove slack from the web so it remains taut without breaking.
Most previously known continuous web printers do not readily enable scaleable, modular printer platforms. For example, continuous web printers are typically designed to suit a particular user's needs with the printheads, rollers, roll bars, and the like being custom mounted at specified locations in the frame of the web printer. Such a configuration is not easily changed or modified to accommodate an increase or decrease to the number of printheads or a change in the geometry or arrangement of the web path.